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To bring our
attention to more BITSIANS in the news as well as news about BITS
Pilani please email
venu@bitsaa.org
May 24, 2004
: BITS
Pilani and Berkeley-educated Congress MP Prithviraj
Chavan was sworn in as the Minister of State for Finance, assisting PM
Manmohan Singh.
April 28, 2004
: The
Wharton
Business
School
’s Annual Business Plan competition was won by Sammonoi
Banerjee and his team for development of the handheld Brain Trauma
Detector. Sammonoi received $20,000 for his effort and has received
funding from the Navy. The company is Infrascan, Inc.
April
19, 2004: Dr. Kishan
Baheti, 1968 graduate of BITS, crossed the finishline of the grueling
Boston Marathon with an amazing finishing time of 3 hours and 52 minutes,
Baheti completed the 26.2 mile race in the top 30% of the 16,000-runner
field. Boston Marathon has a tradition of attracting the top runners in
the world where each runner is admitted based on qualifying times of a
previous marathon within last two years. Baheti qualified to compete in
Boston
by finishing the 2003 Washington DC Marine Corps Marathon in three and a
half hours. Dr. Baheti is a program Director in the Division of Electrical
and Communications Systems at the National Science Foundation in
Washington
DC
.
April
17, 2004
:
Kenya
names Mr. Goenka,
a graduate of BITS Pilani and founder of ITPC, a Rs 200-crore export house
in
Kenya
, as honorary counsel in
India
to develop business relations with
Kenya
.
April
16, 2004: Indira P. Raman, (1998 Chemical) joined XLRI in 2002 and graduated
this year with a Gold medal in marketing. She has joined Colgate
Palmolive.
April
15, 2004: B Murali Krishna is contesting the AP elections for the Bahujan
Samaj Party from the Himayatnagar Assembly seat. “I’ve come to develop
my city. To show that NRIs like me are capable of contributing more than
anyone else for its development,” asserts Murali Krishna. Now for
Krishna
’s track record. He was born in Tenali,
Guntur
. He did his BTech from Bits Pilani, MTech from IIT, Chennai and MBA from
IIM Bangalore.
April 15, 2004
: Delhi Police arrested two
persons on charges of duping the ICICI bank of Rs 60 lakh, including G.
Udayan Dravid, a BITSian. He is accused of selling off the
hypothecated vehicles on forged documents, without repaying the bank loan.
Police said that Dravid, director of Gravity Logistics Pvt Ltd and Dravid
Investment Pvt Ltd, had procured a loan of Rs 1.10 crores from ICICI bank
against hypothecation of 24 vehicles for his transportation and
warehousing business. 13 out of the 24 vehicles have been traced which
accounts for Rs 50 lakhs. Dravid has done his engineering from BITS Pilani
and MBA from
Panjab
University
,
Chandigarh
.
April
2, 2004: Anurag Jain (’88),
Founder of Vision Healthsource and Brigade was appointed Head of the
Business Process Solutions Group at Perot Systems, a $200 million
division. Anurag sold Vision Healthsource to Perot for $10 million earlier
this year.
April 5, 2004
: Srinivas
Balasubramanian (Founder, Infravio) raised a new round of $6 million
round last week from strategic investors NetiQ (Nasdaq : NTIQ) and other
venture backers. This is in addition to the $6.2 million that was raised
last year, after an earlier $7 million raised in 2000.
April 3, 2004
: Bharat Forge, founded by Baba
Kalyani, BITSian, joins a growing number of leading Indian companies
to offer a BITS Pilani degree. The programme which will be conducted at
BFL will primarily enable BITS to offer a degree course equivalent to BE/
B Tech to Kalyani Group employees. The
employees will have a full-time student status and the degree awarded will
be valid for applying for higher education in any other university. This
three-year-six semester course consists of 20 subjects spread over first
five semesters and project work for the sixth semester.
April
1, 2004: Chola Asset Management Company named Sashi
Krishnan as their new Chief Executive Officer.
March 23, 2004
: The
University
of
Buffalo
reported that a team led by Prof. Abani Patra has invented a pump to be used in a device that
may help revolutionize the decontamination and purification of water,
juices, and other liquids. Patra is an associate professor of mechanical
and aerospace engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied
Sciences. He graduated with a degree in Mech from BITS in 1987.
March
1, 2004
: Two
BITSIANS, Mithun Paul,
2000B5A1588 and Ganesh Ramachandran,
2001B5A3586, came second in the National Level Finals of the Awakening
Indians to India Quiz, conducted by the Chinmaya Mission. They got through
many rounds including the State level, Zonal level and went on to become
the runners up in National finals, beating around almost 345,000
participants who appeared for the first round of the quiz from all over
India
. They won a cash award of Rs.90,000/- and a fully sponsored one month All
India Trip. They have also won a dinner with Dr.A.P.J Abdul Kalam, the
Hon: President of India.The quiz which is being aired on Zee TV in 13
episodes, is being mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records for
being the largest Quiz ever conducted.
March
1, 2004: Rakesh Ranjan (‘93
PhD), Senior
Lecturer at Faculty of Engineering and Technology , Multimedia University
Malayisa has been nominated for Marquis WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD (USA) 2004
for his research contribution in the area of "Radial Distribution
Systems". Dr. Rakesh has co-authored three books entitled “Signals
and Systems” published by McGraw-Hill, Singapore / Tata McGraw-Hill, New
Delhi, India , “Random Process and Queuing Theory” published by
Pearson, Prentice Hall, Malaysia and "Circuits and Signals"
published by Pearson, Prentice Hall, Malaysia. His research interests are
operation, control and planning of Distribution system with the
application of fuzzy logic, genetic algorithm and genetic
programming etc. He has contributed so far, 17 research papers in
international journals and 35 papers at international conferences.
February 24, 2004
: Ramesh
Ramanathan: "Practical patriotism is what we need." Times of
India
carried an article on Ramesh Ramanathan and Janagraha on Tuesday, February
24th. Ramesh Ramanathan who "chucked up a career as a banking star to
start a good governance project".
 January
22, 2004: Prof Krishna Saraswat was named the Rickey/Nielsen Chair in the
School
of
Engineering
at
Stanford
University
. He had earlier received the
2004 IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award for seminal contributions to silicon
process technology. Dr. Saraswat has also previously received the
Electrochemical Society’s Thomas D. Callinan Award and two gold medals
for undergraduate excellence while attending BITS Pilani. He is the author
or co-author of more than 400 technical papers and is the recipient of
several Best Paper Awards.
January 21, 2004
: Kalpana
Nayak ('90 BE Comp Science) is the Commandant of the first all-women
battalion of TN police profiled in NewsToday. On January 31, J
Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu commissioned India’s first
All Women Police Battalion, led by Kalpana Nayak ('90 BE Comp Science).
Part of her job is to provide commando training to over 1000 women police
officers in TN.
Credit:
College of W&M
January 15, 2004
: Associate
Professor Ram Ganeshan (’86) was
named the co-winner of this year’s Wickham Skinner Award for Early
Career Research Accomplishment. Bestowed each year by the Production and
Operations Management Society (POMS), the award recognizes young scholars
– those who have received and/or begun their academic careers in the
previous five years – with unusually strong research records and
reputations.
To be considered for the
internationally recognized POMS award, Ganeshan submitted a portfolio
detailing his research and demonstrating its contribution to academia.
The latter requirement certainly wasn’t difficult: Ganeshan is
one of, if not the first, to concentrate research efforts on the use of
digital technology to enhance the efficiency of supply chains.
January 15, 2004
: BITSian
combines e-tailing with network marketing, profiled in Business Standard. Vishal
Anand, a 32-year-old BITS Pilani computer science graduate says that
his dotcom venture Mahamaza Ecomm Ltd not only stayed afloat but grew into
an Rs 80 crore company in the last three years. By selling the products
through a chain of network marketing agents (like Tupperware) to customers
in small towns - not metros.
January 12, 2004
: Wipro Vice Chairman Vivek
Paul has been named as one of the best managers in the world for the
year 2003 by BusinessWeek in its latest issue dated
January 12, 2004
. Paul has been listed
alongside Apple boss Steve Jobs, NBC chairman Bob Wright, Craig Barret of
Intel and Starbucks CEO Orin Smith. BusinessWeek praised the Mountain
View, California-based Wipro vice chairman for taking Wipro from a $150
million company to a $1 billion giant; and for his strategy of growth by
acquisition is helping Wipro steal business from the likes of IBM Global
and Accenture.
January 10, 2004
: BITSIAN
leads the software team that lands a spaceship on Mars. Computer engineer Kanna
Rajan ('84) team that developed the software for Spirit. For Rajan's
years of hard work, the moment of truth was when Spirit rolled off the
lander platform. The Rover will drive around the planet and scoop up rocks
for experiments, guided by the software that Rajan and his colleagues
developed. Rajan is the second Indian from the
University
of
Texas
to hit the headlines in recent times. The first was the late astronaut,
Kalpana Chawla. Kanna Rajan is a member of the Planning and Scheduling
group at
NASA
Ames
Research
Center
. He holds a BE (Hons) Computer Science from the Birla Institute of
Technology & Science, Pilani, India and a Masters from the University
of Texas, Arlington both in Computer Science. Prior to joining
Ames
he was in the doctoral programming Computer Science at the Courant
Institute of Mathematical Sciences at
New York
University
. His primary research interests are in Planning, Robotics and Knowledge
Representation.
January
7, 2004: Srividhya Rajesh, BITSian, is among leading fund managers in
India
. Srividhya Rajesh handles the
Select Focus Portfolio, Sundaram Growth, and Sundaram Taxsaver, and
Sundaram Mid Cap funds for Sundaram Mutual. An alumnus of BITS Pilani, she
has been with Sundaram Mutual since the company's inception and is widely
quoted in the Indian press for market insight. Srividhya worked with Kotak
Mahindra for two years prior to joining Sundaram Mutual.
January 1, 2004
: Amkette
is staying ahead of the herd by moving into high-end computer peripherals
such as LCD screens and wireless keyboards. “We were very clear from the
beginning that the business model would be to work on carefully identified
niches,” says Rajiv Bapna,
the BITSian MD of Amkette. Rajiv completed his BE from IIT Delhi and then
came to Pilani for higher studies.
January
1, 2004: R.K.Kaul (’71) is head of DSCL Energy (Shriram Goup) that has been
named the best Energy Services Company two years in a row by the Petroleum
Conservation and Research Association(PCRA). A tennis champion at Pilani
for three years, he has given the proposal to BITS Pilani, which could
save upto Rs. 1 crore a year.
December 15, 2003
: Magma
Launches ''IC Excellence'' Initiative in
India
; Partners With BITS Pilani. Magma
Design Automation Inc. (Nasdaq:LAVA) one of the world's leading providers
of chip design solutions, today announced the launch of its "IC
Excellence" initiative in
India
. As part of this initiative, Magma will donate IC design software to five
leading engineering institutions including BITS Pilani, launch an IC
Physical Design PG Diploma course with leading VLSI training institutions
in
India
. Magma Design has won many international accolades and was started by an
Indian, Rajeev Madhavan, who is currently CEO. This
initiative was led by Raj Khare,
CEO Broadcom
India
, Vinod Agarwal, Chairman,
Logicvision and other BITSIANS.
December
11, 2003
: Shivan
Subramaniam, FM Global CEO was profiled in the Economist. FM Global
has $4 billion in revenues. IN A new, $78m research facility in
Rhode Island
, FM Global routinely blows up, batters and burns all sorts of materials
and structures. It is distinguished as being one of the largest facilities
in the world that can do a controlled fire. The company is one of the
handful that dominate the market for insuring large industrial and
commercial property. Its penchant
for testing things to destruction is a sign of its unusual approach to
underwriting risks, based on preventing losses rather than on minute
analysis of probabilities. Indeed, it employs 1,400 engineers, more than
all its competitors together, and incredibly, has no actuaries.
Barring a disaster, FM Global
is likely to conclude a second year with a combined ratio (operating costs
and claims losses divided by premiums) of only 70%. For almost 20 years,
most property-and-casualty insurers have put up with combined ratios of
more than 100% and tried to bridge the gap by investing premiums. A ratio
of 90% is regarded as heroic. Anything less verges on being too good to be
true.
However, FM Global's peculiar approach to underwriting may well have
helped too. Its army of engineers evaluates clients and pushes them to
make their buildings safer, on the premise that most losses are avoidable.
This strategy of emphasising loss prevention rather than statistical
analysis stems from the company's origins. A
truly original approach.
December
8, 2003: Amit Thakral, (‘97 Chemical) received the Infosys Excellence
awards, given for his work with the Hinjewadi Foundation, an organization
working for upliftment of society, especially the poorer sections. Amit is
one of the core member of the foundation.
November 30, 2003
: BITSian
is the editor of a book titled "
India
in the global software industry" - an examination of
India
's IT industry. Anthony P. D'Costa,
a graduate of BITS, Pilani (1975-80) is an Associate Professor of
Comparative International Development at the
University
of
Washington
,
Tacoma
and is affiliated with the University's
South Asia
and International Studies Programs in
Seattle
. By showing how
India
can become internationally competitive in the IT industry, this book also
offers an avenue for
India
to tackle the myriad economic problems of the country.
October
2, 2003: Krishna
Vavilala is Chairman of Mahatma Gandhi Statue Project in
Houston
. 1960 BITS, Pilani graduate Krishna S. Vavilala, who was featured in the
inaugural issue of Sandpaper in May,2003 was elected Chairman for the
Mahatma Gandhi Statue Project in
Houston
. The attached picture shows Mr. Krishna S. Vavilala addressing the Press
during Mayor's Press Conference in City Hall. Standing behind are
Houston
's Mayor Lee P Brown (Center Right) and the Consul General of India, Hon.
S.R. Tayal (Center Left). Ground breaking by Mayor Lee P Brown was on
October 2, 2003
in
Houston
's centrally located
Hermann
Park
, which is frequented by millions of tourists every year. The statue will
be installed and inaugurated by Mayor Brown in December 2003.
October 2, 2003
: BITS cracks the first round of
BBC University Challenge on October 2nd. It was a splended
performance by 4 BITSians at the BBC University Challenge - BITS scored
110 points versus 55 points scored by Sir M Visvewaraya Insititute of
Technology. At the start BITS was 25 points behind , but the team came
back with a knock out punch for a COOOL win !!
September
8, 2003
:
BITSAA.org
is subject of a Rediff article on online student networks. Writing about
alumni networks, Rediff article mentions the use of BITSAA.org for
networking, for fundraising and for project management. BITSAA.org has
quickly established itself as a leading alumni web-site that has
successfully brought together BITSians from BITSAA's 30 global chapters
under the same tent. ■.
Archives: Stories from
2003
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